Mary Balogh (26 page)

He drew a delicate necklet of diamonds from a pocket and clasped it about her neck.

“Happy wedding day, sweetheart,” he said, turning her and kissing her on the cheek.

“Oh, Papa,” she said, tears in her eyes. “In many ways you will always be my very favorite man.”

“You had better say your favorite
father
,” he said. “That way you will not create any misunderstandings. And a small gift for you, too, Olivia.” He turned his eyes to his wife. “I twisted the arm of your maid and discovered that you would be wearing green today.” He looked appreciatively at the rich green of her silk dress and drew an emerald necklace from another pocket. “Do you want to wear that silver chain, too?”

She looked at him mutely before fumbling with the catch of her silver chain and removing it. He replaced it with the emeralds while she bit her lip and leaned her head forward.

“A gift for our daughter’s wedding,” he said, turning her by the shoulders as he had done with Sophia and kissing her on the lips while their daughter looked on, her eyes shining.

“Thank you.” Olivia looked up into his eyes and fingered the emeralds at her throat. “Thank you, Marcus.”

The door burst open suddenly without even the courtesy of a knock.

“Sophia,” Cynthia said, her eyes as round as saucers, her dark blue dress now indisputably the perfect length. “Everyone else has left and the barouche is at the door and I could have died when I tried on my dress and found that I tripped over the hem whenever I moved and you have managed without me anyway and look even more lovely than I expected and Lord Francis is going to burst with pride when he sees you and …”

“And we had better not keep the horses waiting any longer,” the earl said firmly. “Or the groom, either.”

“Oh, Cynthia,” Sophia said, taking her father’s arm to be led down the stairs, “I have told them. And I am so happy I could burst. And my legs feel like two columns of jelly. I do believe I am going to be sick.”

T
HE CHURCH WAS
full. Olivia saw that as the Viscount Melville escorted her down the aisle to her seat at the front. It was also looking at its most beautiful, the sunlight glowing through the stained-glass windows, the floral decorations bringing the summertime inside. She was not sure how the church had looked at her own wedding. She had had eyes for nothing and no one except her bridegroom.

Lord Francis, looking very slim and very young and very anxious, was standing with his brother and glancing back to the doorway where Sophia would appear soon with Marc.

Sophia. She felt like crying. Her daughter was about to be married. The sole person she had had to live for for fourteen years. She was to be married. For love. Despite that strange, bizarre story she had told less than an hour before, she was marrying for love.

As she, Olivia, had married for love nineteen years before. In the same church. And suddenly the years rolled back and it was Marc standing there looking pale and nervous and then fixing his eyes on her as she approached with her father. And it was she approaching, feeling that her legs would surely not carry her one inch farther, and then focusing her eyes on the man waiting for her at the altar. Marc. The man she loved. The man she was going to spend the rest of her life loving.

Lord Francis’s eyes stilled and lit up suddenly and there was a stir in the church. Olivia, getting to her feet, found herself fighting an ache in her throat and blinking her eyes. And there they were, long before she had won the fight, Sophia’s face bright and glowing, seeing no one but Lord Francis. And Marc, looking broad-shouldered and calm and capable. The organ was filling the church with sound.

He sat beside her after giving away their daughter to the man who was about to become her husband. His shoulder touched hers. And she thought quite vividly, distracted from the wedding service for a moment, of what Sophia had told them in her dressing room. She had done it for them. She had betrothed herself to Francis so that they would come together and sort out their differences. And she had seen them together in bed—three mornings before, the last time they had been
together—and had concluded with joy that her scheme had worked. Dear naive Sophia.

“I will,” Lord Francis said.

Olivia’s hand was taken suddenly in a strong clasp, and he placed their joined hands on his thigh.

“I will,” Sophia said.

They squeezed each other’s hand almost to the breaking point. She pressed her shoulder against his arm. Someone was sniveling—doubtless Rose.

“What God has joined together,” the rector was saying, “let no man put asunder.”

He squeezed her hand even more tightly, if that were possible, looked down into her face, and then laid a large linen handkerchief in her free hand. She dabbed at her eyes with it.

What God has joined together
, … She clung to his hand … 
let no man put asunder
.

He had kissed her at the altar—she could remember the heat in her cheeks at his kissing her in full view of a churchful of people. He had checked her steps as they walked down the aisle together, preventing her from running with the exuberance of the moment. He had forced her to smile at all their relatives and friends beaming back at them from the pews. And then they had stood on the steps outside the church, shaking hands and being kissed, shaking hands and being kissed, on and on for what had seemed like an eternity. She could remember the bells pealing.

And then he had taken her hand and raced with her along the twisting path of the churchyard to the waiting carriage before anyone else could get there. And he had drawn the curtains across the windows of the carriage and taken her into his arms and kissed and kissed her until the carriage had stopped outside Clifton and the coachman was coughing outside the closed door.

Nineteen years ago. And fourteen of the years since lived apart.

There was a stir and a murmur in the church. A smattering of laughter. Lord Francis had his hands at Sophia’s waist and she had her face turned up eagerly for his kiss.

Olivia’s hand was raised to her husband’s lips and held there for a long moment.

And then somehow they were all outside the church and Sophia launched herself into first her mother’s and then her father’s arms, looking so eager and so happy that Olivia ached for her innocence. And then Francis was hugging her and calling her Mama and laughing. The duchess was weeping into a large handkerchief and uttering incoherencies about her baby. It was the happiest day of her life, she told anyone who cared to listen—all her babies were happily settled.

The church bells pealed out their glad tidings.

And then Olivia’s hand was being shaken and her cheek kissed by a whole host of relatives and houseguests and neighbors. She and her husband were being congratulated on having produced such a beautiful bride. She realized that he had one arm tight about her shoulders and she one arm about his waist only when she found that she was shaking people’s hands with her left hand.

“Yes,” Marc was saying, “we are the most fortunate of parents. Aren’t we, Olivia?”

“She has been the joy of our life,” she said.

But suddenly there was no one else to greet, though there was still a great deal of noise and laughter and milling about.

“Francis is not as wise as I was,” the earl said, looking down at his wife, his eyes twinkling. He still had an arm about her shoulders. He nodded to the roadway beyond the churchyard. “It could take them ten minutes to get away.”

Francis and Sophia were in their carriage, but the door was being held open by laughing guests and flowers were being pelted inside and Richard and Claude were actually trying to unharness the horses while their brother’s attention was distracted. But Francis had been to a few weddings in his time and participated in active mischief. He poked his head out of the doorway, his face wreathed in a grin, and yelled at the coachman to start and run the rascals down. He closed the door when the carriage was already in motion.

“Ah,” the earl said as a hand inside the carriage pulled the curtains across the windows. He turned and smiled down at his wife.

“Oh, Marcus,” she said, “can she really be all grown up, then? Is it all over already?”

S
OPHIA WAS WAVING
tearfully from the window of the carriage later the same afternoon. But there was no one to be seen any longer. The carriage had turned a bend and the house was out of sight. Her husband, she saw when she turned to look, had already settled back against the cushions. He was smiling at her.

“Tears, Soph?” he said. “You are sorry to be leaving your mama and papa?”

“We will not see them for months and months, Francis,” she said, blowing her nose and putting her handkerchief away resolutely. “Perhaps not until Christmas.”

“Perhaps you should stay with them,” he said, “while I go to Italy alone. I can tell you all about it when I return. I’ll even tell you if the Sistine Chapel is still in Rome.”

She looked at him a little uncertainly. “Perhaps you would prefer to go alone,” she said.

He grinned and stretched out a hand to her. “Don’t make it this easy for me,” he said. “And what are you
doing all the way over there? Trying to create a bulge in the side of the carriage? You aren’t afraid of me by any chance, are you?”

“Afraid of you?” she said. “Pooh, why should I be afraid of you?”

“Because I am your new husband, perhaps,” he said. “Because we are right in the very middle of a wedding.”

“We are not,” she said. “The wedding is all over. And we are on our way on our wedding journey at last.”

“Only the ceremony and the breakfast are over, Soph,” he said, lacing his fingers with hers and trying to draw her toward him. “The rest of the wedding—the most important part—is still to come. We are not married until that part is completed, you know.”

Her cheeks flamed, and she resisted the pull of his hand.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

“Afraid?” she said with a brave attempt at scorn. “Of course not, Francis. The very idea.”

“Shall I tell you what I am going to do to you tonight?” he said. “Would it make it easier if you knew what was in store?”

“I know,” she said quickly. “And I don’t want you to say a word. You want to do it only to embarrass me.”

“Not a word?” he said. “This sounds distinctly promising. Shall I show you, then, Soph? A sort of rehearsal in the carriage?”

“Don’t touch me!” she said.

“Er,” he said, “why are you clinging to my hand, Soph, if I am not to touch you?”

“Francis,” she said, “don’t do this. Let us quarrel tomorrow, shall we? But not today. Today I do not feel up to it.”

He chuckled and leaned across the carriage, taking her by surprise by scooping her up into his arms and depositing her on his lap.

“Admit that you are afraid,” he said, “and I will have mercy on you, Soph.”

“Never,” she said. “I have never been afraid of you even when you made me climb that tree because there were wild dogs loose and then went for help so that you could hide in the bushes and bark. I was not afraid.”

“Soph,” he said, tucking her comfortably against him, “did I do that to you?”

“Yes, you did,” she said, burrowing her head against his shoulder. “But I was not afraid, Francis. And I am not afraid now.”

“I can’t tease you any longer, then,” he said. “What a dull journey this is going to be.”

“But is it not dreadfully embarrassing?” she said, hiding her face against him. “I think it must be. I shall die of embarrassment.”

“Not before I will,” he said. “In fact, Soph, I can hardly contain my trembles even now.” He shook, convulsively. “I shall be sure to extinguish every light tonight and draw every curtain, including the ones around the bed so that you will not see my blushes. It is the most embarrassing thing ever imagined. We might both not survive it. Indeed …”

Sophia punched him sharply on his free shoulder. “Don’t make fun of me,” she said. “You have no sensibility at all. You are quite horrid and I hate you.”

“This is better,” he said. “Perhaps I am going to enjoy the journey after all.”

“You have done nothing but laugh at me ever since we drove off,” she said. “I wish I had not let you talk me into this three days ago. I wish I had held firm. You are horrid, Francis, and I wish heartily I had not married you.”

“Kiss me,” he said.

“I am not going to kiss you,” she said. “Ever. I hate
you. I would rather kiss a toad. I would rather kiss a …”

“Snake,” he said. “Kiss me.”

“… rat. No.”

“Kiss me, Soph,” he said softly. “Kiss me, my wife.”

“I am, aren’t I?” she said.

“Almost, yes.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “Kiss me.”

She kissed him.

A
FTER THE NEWLYWEDS HAD BEEN WAVED ON
their way late in the afternoon, the guests from the neighborhood began to order their carriages brought around and took their leave. The duke and duchess withdrew to their private apartments with their family for an hour’s breather, as the duke put it, before dinner and the informal dancing that was to follow it in the drawing room. The other houseguests, too, withdrew to some private and quiet activity, all the excitement of the wedding breakfast at an end.

Olivia abandoned everyone and fled to the hidden garden. It had been such a turmoil of a day, she thought, closing the wooden door gratefully behind her. She desperately needed some peace. And it was there waiting for her, the air inside the rose-draped walls and the surrounding trees of the wood still and heavy with summer, the only sounds the chirping of birds and the droning of unseen insects.

She felt heavy with desolation. Sophia was gone and would be gone for several months. And even when she returned, she would no longer be living at Rushton but in the home of her new husband. There would be only the occasional visit to look forward to.

She sat on her favorite stone in one of the rock gardens and feasted her eyes on the flowers all about her.
She breathed in their scents. She felt guilty about being depressed on Sophia’s wedding day. Despite the girl’s confession of the morning, she had been brilliantly happy and very obviously was deeply in love with Francis. And he with her. They would be happy together. She hoped. Oh, she hoped. It made her nervous to see a bride and groom too deeply in love, especially when the bride was her own daughter.